Was Detroit narcotics raid too aggressive? Family angered, traumatized after no drugs found

View full sizeGus Burns | MLive.comChina Cochran's home at 18030 Wildemere, the second home from the left in the photo, was raided by Detroit narcotics officers on June 9.

DETROIT, MI — Weed-whackers and lawnmowers typically whiz and rumble as
they manicure the well-kept lawns in the neighborhood directly west of the
Detroit Golf Club.

The sight of Detroit police vehicles filled with narcotics
officers converging on and raiding a suspected drug house is not the norm. China
Cochran, who lives with her family at 18030 Wildemere, says that's what
happened at their home on June 9.

The ordeal traumatized Cochran and her family, shook her
faith in city government and its police, she said.

"It's hard to be here," said Cochran a week after the raid.
"I'm still shaken up... Everything is just
running through my head.

"I really don't know what's going on, but I just feel like,
'How could this happen to me, and if this happened to me who else has it
happened to,' because clearly we are just a working family."

Detroit Police Sgt. Eren Stephens said the department had evidence that indicated there was "probable cause" to believe illegal activity occurred inside the home.

Police did not find any drugs in the house, but did remove
items they believe could be connected to an ongoing investigation.

"What (China Cochran) failed to say, which they discussed,
was that her brother who resides at her residence was identified as the person
connected to another ongoing felony drug case," Detroit Police Sgt. Eren
Stephens said in an email responding to Cochran's representation of what
happened. " Details on this or any other narcotic ongoing investigation will
not be released.

"The search warrant was legal, narcotics were purchased from
the address on Wildermere, and (police) received several complaints from
residents in the area and on the block regarding narcotics being sold from her
residence.

"This information was included in the search warrant, which
she had a copy of."

In Wayne County, the Prosecutor's Office reviews the police
affidavit with request to search a person or location. If prosecuting personnel
find there is "probable cause" to believe illegal contraband or evidence
related to a crime may be obtained through execution of a warrant, it is
presented to a judge or magistrate to be signed and executed by law
enforcement.

View full sizeGus Burns | MLive.comThe door of the Cochran's home at 18030 Wildemere was busted in by Detroit police conducting a raid. The family replaced a portion of the frame.

The raid

It was Saturday afternoon and the China Cochran's home was
full.

Cochran said she was in a sitting room toward the rear of
the six-bedroom home with her mother, Sheryl Cross, 56, and four young nieces
and nephews. Also in the house was her 62-year-old father, who requires
nitroglycerin for a heart condition; her 72-year-oldgrandfather who has
suffered "several strokes" and has diabetes, a 25-year-old sister and a friend
of Cross.

"Wham, wham, wham,"
Cochran said she heard, as someone beat repeatedly on the front door.

Her mother "jumped up" and began to gather the kids. As Cochran
approached the entrance hall, she said a barrage of people broke and entered
through the door.

"The ones that kind of captured us, they had on masks," said
Cochran. "I was asking, 'What are you here for? What are you here for?'"

Police handcuffed and directed the family to a large room
with two couches and no curtains at the front of the home adjacent the foyer.

"Everybody is standing against the wall with their hands
cuffed and were crying, we're like, 'What's going on?'" Cochran said. "We're just
screaming and yelling and crying.

"I say, 'You have to tell me what's going on'... They told
us were we're a drug house... They said you're selling dope in this house."

Police left, Cochran estimates, two hours after "tearing up"
the bedroom of her 20-year-old brother, whom she said was working at a
supermarket, her own and several others.

In the days following the raid, Cochran's father was
hospitalized twice with anxiety attacks, which she believes were provoked by
the police incident.

Use of Force

"Unless you have a crystal ball, we don't know what's on the
other side of that door," said Stephens, who heads the Detroit Police
Department's Public Information Office.

The raid occurred on the last day of the three-day drug
sting conducted by Detroit narcotics officers that targeted 43 homes and
resulted in 87 arrests.

Stephens said one of those raids resulted in a suspect
shooting at, but missing, narcotics officers.

No arrests, as of Wednesday, had resulted from the raid at
Cochran's home and she said her brother has never been detained, though police
have since indicated that he is a suspect in an unsolved shooting.

View full sizeGus Burns | MLive.comLooking south along Wildemere at Thatcher from near Cochran's home

Police seized a gun magazine with bullets, a digital scale
and a Derringer gun that Cochran said her grandfather owned and didn't work.

Detroit police generally receive tips about drug houses from
neighbors calling the police department's tip line, 313-224-DOPE (3673); or
from an informant, said Stephens; and once investigators have information about
an address, undercover officers perform "a buy" of illegal drugs prior to
seeking a judge-signed search warrant and conducting a raid.

I was talking to a neighbor and "he said, 'You know you're
the talk of the town,'" said Cochran's mother. "It was very embarrassing
because there are no drugs here, and I would never allow my son to sell drugs
in this home."

Cross said investigators handling Cochran's complaint told
the pair that an undercover officer had previously purchased a "vile of
marijuana" inside the home, but Cochran and her mother contend her brother has
never sold drugs there.

Russ Talbert, 71, a 30-year resident of the neighborhood, lives
across the street and about three houses north of Cochran. He said he's never
noticed any unusual activity at the Cochran home.

Cochran made a public complaint about the raid at the
Detroit Police Commission meeting on June 14 and was referred to an
investigating officer.

After speaking at the Police Commissioners meeting, Cochran
said the investigating officer told her: "You're saying you want us to go back
out there and tell them what we have against your brother?"

Cochran, who holds a master's degree in social justice from
Marygrove College, said she teaches journalism to high-risk, "marginalized"
children and has served publicly as a legal aid for the Wayne County Commission
and as a public relations employee for former Councilwoman Alberta Tinsley-Talabi,
who is now a state representative.

"I grew up in Detroit,
but this incident has just made me lose all faith in this city," Cochran said.
"Because I don't have faith in public service, I don't have faith in our safety
system here and I don't have faith in our government because it clearly doesn't
work for people.

"There are tons of people that are robbed and killed every
day; and they broke in my house and they found nothing."

The five-member Detroit Police Commission formed in 1974 and
as part of its duties reviews citizen complaints.

The Police Commission expects to receive a report on the
incident from the Office of the Chief Investigator but the findings are not
shared publicly, said Police Commissioner Jerome L. Warfield.